An Evening with Chris Palmer THE BEST AND WORST OF WILDLIFE FILMS Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital By Professor Chris Palmer Distinguished Film Producer in Residence Director, Center for Environmental Filmmaking School of Communication, American University [email protected]; (202) 885-3408 www.environmentalfilm.org Tuesday, March 20, 2012 A few days ago I received the following e-mail from the author and journalist Mark Dowie. He wrote: On a recent trip to Ecuador I befriended a renowned wildlife photographer. Over drinks one evening he invited me to join him on a shoot the next day. His prey was a very rare and beautiful tropical snake. We met the next morning and drove with a small crew to the edge of the rainforest. I was braced for a long exploratory trek into the wild in search of the elusive viper. Fortunately we didn't have to go far. His porter had one in a cloth bag. He removed it from the bag and placed it on the branch of a tree three paces into the rainforest. The snake coiled itself comfortably around the branch and posed while lights were assembled, lit, and some perfect shots were captured. On the way back to Quito my friend confessed that most of his shots were somehow posed like this. Mark Dowie added, “I'm sure this is not new or shocking to you. But it did rather spoil all those hours I'd spent watching Wild Kingdom, Nature, Attenborough and others on Sunday morning TV as a child.” As many of you know, I published a book in 2010 called Shooting in the Wild which discussed many examples of unethical wildlife filmmaking like the one Mark Dowie described. I praised wildlife and environmental films for their accomplishments, but also took them to task for not living up to their potential and for spreading misinformation and sensationalism. My book was full of mea culpas—admissions of my own ethical failings when producing wildlife films. But most of us in this business make mistakes. It’s been over five years since Steve Irwin was killed by the barb of a stingray while filming in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, and over eight years since Timothy Treadwell was killed and eaten by a bear in Katmai National Park in Alaska. 2 Both men liked to get close to dangerous animals and, either intentionally or unintentionally, goad and provoke them. Both men invaded the personal space of these creatures, and when the animals defended themselves, Steve Irwin and Timothy Treadwell paid with their lives. Harassing wild animals isn’t the only problem with much of wildlife filmmaking. Too many programs send out an anti-conservation message, use animals from zoos or game farms without telling the audience, and use computer graphics or staging of some kind to deceive audiences. As I say, I’ve done many of these things myself. This evening I’m going to show you examples of the worst and the best of some recent wildlife shows. Let’s start with three of the worst. The Grey which is a problem for its anti-conservation message. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/the-grey/ The Grey is an action-packed thriller that pits man against wolf. A group of oil-rig workers are left stranded in the remote Alaskan wilderness after their plane crashes. The survivors are relentlessly hunted and pursued by a vicious pack of massive, bloodthirsty, and terrifying wolves. This film could not have arrived in theaters at a worse time because wolves no longer have the protection of the Endangered Species Act and ranchers are out to kill as many of them as possible. The clear message from the film is that wolves hate us and are violent, aggressive, and predatory. It’s true it’s a movie and not a documentary, but I still object to its depiction of wolves. It plays on the cultural fear we have of wolves, as we see in fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood. Wolves are, in fact, rarely aggressive towards people. They are superb hunters of hoofed animals, as well as being caring parents. They live cooperatively in packs and, like us, are highly social. Some of you may have a different view, but in my view, The Grey hurts wolf conservation efforts. It demonizes wolves as menacing and cunning man-eaters—a species we are better off without. In fact, they are a critically important species and we need them to maintain healthy ecosystems. Here is my second example of a problem wildlife film, this time for the audience deception involved. Turtle: The Incredible Journey http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/turtle-the-incredible-journey/trailers/ 3 The makers of this movie about loggerhead turtles call it a documentary. When you watch it, you think you’re watching real footage of this highly threatened species. In fact, the film is full of computer-generated imagery and special effects. The film, which has a commendably strong conservation message, tells the amazing story of the turtle’s journey over twenty-five years, involving a massive migration from a beach in Florida to Africa and back. Dangers and threats lurk everywhere. What I don’t like about this film is that viewers have no way of knowing what is real and what is digitally manipulated, enhanced, and animated. In my opinion, and you may differ with me on this, it isn’t ethical to have so much unlabelled artificiality and artifice in a so-called documentary. Viewers naturally assume everything they are watching was shot in the wild with free-roaming loggerheads. As the New York Times said in its review, audiences have no way of knowing when nonfiction ends and fiction begins. When viewers find out much of what they watched was computer-generated, will they also begin to doubt the multiple dangers that loggerheads face from people? Will the film’s conservation message be undermined? There’s nothing wrong with using animation, as long as viewers are told. In fact, animation is a good thing. It can reduce the amount of manhandling of turtles which is needed when you film the real creatures. Now we come to the third example of a bad wildlife film, this time for animal harassment. Dave Salmoni and Into the Pride http://animal.discovery.com/videos/into-the-pride-cleo-challenges-dave.html Dave Salmoni has a series on Animal Planet called Into the Pride. The audience is told that a pride of lions is aggressive towards people and needs to be taught to become accustomed to ecotourists. How does Dave Salmoni calm them down? He repeatedly aggravates them. The audience is never told that if Dave were to leave them alone, they might very well calm down on their own. Salmoni rides around the Namibian bush on a quad-bike looking for a close encounter with lions. Lions quickly get habituated to vehicles, but when Dave gets off his bike, as he likes to do, the lions become aggressive and charge him. This makes great television, but lousy conservation. The lions are being gratuitously provoked for the sake of ratings and in the process becoming frightened and needlessly stressed. Dr. Luke Hunter, the Executive Director of Panthera, a renowned conservation organization dedicated to saving the world’s wild cat species, recently wrote a devastating critique of Into the Pride for the Huffington Post. Under the title, “Tormenting Lions for TV,” Dr. Hunter chastised Dave Salmoni for being a “self-absorbed ignoramus” and the program for being “self-indulgent baloney.” Some of you may like Dave and disagree with me on this. 4 I’m now going to show you some clips from programs that I have mixed feelings about. I think the jury is still out. Shark Week http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/shark-week-2011-videos (“Viciously Attacked”) I’ve spoken out in the past about how I dislike the hugely popular Shark Week, now going into its 25th year. In one essay in July 2010 for the Huffington Post, I wrote, This week of bloody feeding frenzies and vicious shark attacks is part of a larger trend in nature programming. Instead of seeking to educate or to promote environmental conservation, these shows focus only on presenting graphic, sensationalized animal violence. Programs like those in Shark Week – while they might garner high ratings and attract advertiser dollars – all too often mislead the audience, exploit animals, and fail to promote conservation. At a time when sharks face increased threat from shark finning, overfishing, and pollution, testosterone-fueled programs that depict them as vicious, man- eating killers only make it more difficult to convince the public of the need to protect them. I have revised my assessment of Shark Week after Brooke Runnette, its executive producer, came to speak here last month at AU. She told us of the attempts she’s making to introduce more conservation and natural history, and to convey how fascinating sharks are rather than how menacing they are. Brooke Runnette is leading efforts within Discovery to work more closely with scientists and conservation organizations such as Oceana and the Pew Charitable Trust’s Global Shark Conservation group. When Brooke spoke here, she admitted openly that Discovery is driven by ratings and that if the ratings of Shark Week decline, she will likely lose her job, but she is trying to be responsive to the criticism of Shark Week by conservationists. So the jury is out on Shark Week until we see what Discovery Channel broadcasts this July, but I’m grateful to Brooke Runnette for acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it.